Origami is a traditional Japanese art that, like so much of this ancient land's rich culture, has been applied to modern life to the best advantage of both. Take this ominously amusing paper craft HAL 9000, for instance. The baleful, glaring red eye of the calculating son-of-a-calculator is rendered harmless in paper and disarmed by the addition of big 'ol clown feet. You just know astronaut Dave Bowman would've wanted one of these on his desk aboard Discovery!

And he could, too, had designer Shunichi Makino of the SF Paper Craft Gallery been around in 1968. Or 2001. Nevermind. What I'm getting at is, Bowman could've downloaded the template for Makino's "Mr. HAL 9000" to his shipboard comp and printed it out. The plans are free, after all, and Bowman could wile away the long trip to Jupiter by carefully folding his paper craft HAL while the real one asked, "Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?"

It's the feet that really distinguish the paper craft HAL 9000 from, well, any other HAL 9000's. Makino's plans include origami "nuts & bolts" that allow HAL's legs to be flexed and angled in a number of ways, giving him a rather jaunty air as he re-boots. Take your time and follow instructions though... if you mess up, "It can only be attributable to human error." (via DVice)

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